¡Qué gracioso!

My Spanish II students right now are reading Kristy Placido’s Robo en la noche, a novel that I’ve taught for many years now.

In chapter 4, the structure “contar chistes” comes up quite a bit, and while not essential to the novel the way some structures are, who doesn’t love a good joke? I scoured the internet for Spanish jokes that would be simple enough for beginners to comprehend. (Nothing is worse than having to over-explain a joke.)

After we read and enjoyed the jokes as a class, I had them get up and tell their favorite joke to a partner, then switch and switch again until everyone had moved around a bit. CI? Not quite, but it worked as a nice brain break!

When we got into actually reading the chapter, I set up some actors in a Reader’s Theatre, and every time the phrase “contaba chistes” came up, my “Cecilio” character had to tell one of these jokes.